Diasporic Experiences in Time of War in Sudan

Transformation of belonging, livelihoods and citizenship

The conference is the final part of a postdoctoral fellowship, under Philipp Schwartz Initiative for researchers at risk funded by Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, based on the School of Social Sciences in Friedensau Adventist University, Germany, July 2024-June 2026.

About the Conference

Sudan is like many other African countries in the horn of Africa, widely famous with ethnic diversity, deep-rooted grievances, and political instability embodied in the spread of armed conflicts and civil wars. On April 15, 2023, violent clashes erupted between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan, the conflict started from Khartoum, then spread to western and central Sudan. Sudan's displacement crisis has been called the world’s worst since the partition of India in 1947 displaced at least 15 million people (Tubiana, 2024). The war in Sudan altered the migration policy not only of the neighboring countries but also of the European Union and International Organization. In the conference we would like to look at these processes by looking at the lives of Sudanese diasporas and their agency on the one side and on the way national governments, communities and international stakeholders respond to it.
The overall conference aims to explore the concepts, temporality, and practicalities of forced migration and the consequences within Sudanese diaspora communities. This conference looks at how people build alternative networks of social security, investment, education, and community order beyond state or international legal regimes of protection and citizenship, to protect themselves from violent presents and uncertain futures. These include business, religious movements, ethno-local diasporic communities and their investments in international business, and politics, and other new forms of citizenship, mutuality, and political community forged in urban settlements and refugee camps.
The conference invites research papers, artistic contributions, and documentations of Sudanese’s diasporic experiences, spanning peace and conflict, forced migration, history and diaspora studies, to explore (and deconstruct) what ‘belonging’ and ‘legality’ can mean for people navigating violent political orders and multiple legal regimes, predatory armed powers, and societal or ecological disaster.

When?

24–26 June 2026

Where?

Friedensau Adventist University
An der Ihle 7
39291 Möckern-Friedensau
Germany

Attendance:

In-Person

Registration

There is no registration fee. Participation in the conference is free of charge.
However, all participants are kindly requested to complete the conference registration in advance.

Visa Support

An official invitation letter will be provided to support your visa application

Contact
For questions about the conference please contact the organizing committee:

Themes

Diaspora and Community Building

How have Sudanese people-built communities of social security, economic opportunity, and political possibility beyond or despite state structures and borders? This theme examines historic and current translocal and diasporic networks and communities, and the forms of social security, investment, education, and community order they create to protect themselves from violent presents and uncertain futures.

Host countries and Policy Responses

How do neighboring countries such as Egypt, Chad, South Sudan, Uganda and Ethiopia respond to the influx of refugees from Sudan? How does the European Union and national governments respond to these migration processes? How does Sudanese communities outside the war zones respond to the people on the move?

Refugee experience and Belonging

What does it mean to be a refugee in neighboring countries/Western countries? What difference it makes if it is the second or the third time to be a refugee? How might being a refugee affect the perception of belonging to Sudan? How being refugee affect: Interethnic relations, competition over resources, security problems, spontaneous forms of integration?

Documentation, Identity and Citizenship

What are the meanings of paperwork to these refugee communities, and what local ideas of citizenship are demanded or promised by various documents and statuses? What are the practical processes of documentation, obtaining and using documents, and the moral limits to manipulating identity for paperwork?

The Refugee Regime

How is the ‘refugee regime’ affecting refugee population experiences and identifications?: How have official refugee policies of different countries of refuge affected and shaped diaspora communities? How have INGOs’ policies and practices affected Sudanese refugees’ practices of settlement, self-identification, and planning for the future?

Accommodation — Friedensau Guesthouse

Participants are welcome to stay at the Friedensau Adventist University guesthouse, located directly on campus. The guesthouse offers comfortable single, double, and triple rooms, each equipped with a private bathroom (shower/WC) and television. Guests also have access to a foyer, terrace, and a small self-catering kitchen. The campus further includes playgrounds, sports facilities, and a gymnasium. Please note that the entire campus is smoke-free and alcohol-free.

When making your booking, please mention “Sudan Conference 2026”.
Please note that participants are responsible for covering their own accommodation costs.

Kindly book your stay directly via the following link:

Book Accommodation

Getting to Friedensau

By train from Berlin (including Berlin Brandenburg Airport BER):
Take a train to Burg bei Magdeburg. If you are arriving at Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER) or traveling from Berlin city, the typical route goes via Potsdam Hauptbahnhof, where you will need to change trains. Please check the connection details in advance.

By bus from Magdeburg Hauptbahnhof (train station):
From Magdeburg, you can take a bus to Möckern (Bus 720).

Shuttle Bus (to Friedensau):
A pickup service will be available from Burg bei Magdeburg and Möckern to Friedensau for conference participants. Please contact the organising committee to arrange this.

Conference Program

Download the Sudan Conference Program 2026 as a pdf

Wednesday, 24 June 2026

08.30 – 9.00 | Arrival and Registration

09.00 – 09.30 | Opening Session- Welcome address and Introduction

9:30-11:30 | Session one: Sundanese in Uganda and Ethiopia: experiences and resilience
‣ Chair: Jill Blau (FAU)
‣ Discussant: Kurt Beck (University of Bayreuth, Germany)

Challenges Facing Sudanese Refugees in Ethiopia: Between the Harshness of Waiting and the Ambition of Asylum: A Case of Filet Bet Area
‣ Noha Hamza (University of Khartoum/CEDEJ Khartoum)

Faith in flight: The role of Religion among Sudanese refugees in Kampala, Uganda
‣ Munzoul A. M. Assal (CMI, Bergen, Norway)

Informal Initiatives as Mechanism of Social & Psychological Support among Sudanese Refugees in Uganda: A study of Social Capital and Community Resilience
‣ Khalda Saber Hassan Ahmed (Ahfad University, Omdurman, Sudan)

Displacement, Forced migration, Return: Linking capacity building in research at universities in the Horn of Africa.
‣ Leif Mangar (University of Bergen, Norway)

11:30-12:00 | Tea and Coffee Break

12:00-13:00 | Campus Tour

13:00-14:00 | Lunch

14:00-16:00 | Session two: Sudanese in Egypt: adaptation and transformation
‣ Chair: Mohamed Bakhit (University of Khartoum/ FAU)
‣ Discussant: Balghis Badri (Ahfad University Omdurman, Sudan)

Sustaining Livelihoods in a Context of Forced Displacement: Sudanese in Faysal after the 2023 War
‣ Marie Bassi (University Cote d’Azur, France) & Duaa Abuswar (EMMIR, Oldenburg)

Grieving from Afar: Socio-Cultural Transformations of Burial Practices among Sudanese in Exile
‣ Aroob Alfaki (University of Khartoum)

Silent Endurance: legal Liminality, Belonging and Identity as Perceived by Sudanese Women Refugees in Cairo
‣ Widad Ali A/Rahman (Ahfad University, Omdurman

The Meaning and Construction of Belonging far from Home
‣ Margret Otto (Berlin)

The Impact of Repeated Displacement on Belonging Among Sudanese Refugees (A Case Study of Egypt)
‣ Amira Babiker Ahmed Osman (Ahfad University, Omdurman, Sudan) & Rawia Alfadil Sharif Mahmoud (Ahfad University for Women)

16:00-16:30 | Tea and Coffee Break

16:30-18:00 | Session three: Sudanese in Europe: legality and belonging
‣ Chair: Daniel Bendix (FAU)
‣ Discussant: Charlotte Wiedemann

Between Protection and Legal Ambiguity: Sudanese Refugees in France and the Transformation of Belonging, Legality, and State Response after the 2023 War
‣ Hisham Bilal (University of Khartoum)

Negotiating Belonging: Social Boundaries and Migration in the City of Halle (Saale), Germany
‣ Zahir Musa Abdal-Kareem (MPI, Halle)

War as Discourse: Media, Popular Culture, and Political Subjectivity among Sudanese Diasporic Communities in Hungary
‣ Ibrahim Ibrahim (University of Debrecen, Hungary)

18.15-20.00 | Khartoum Documentary

20:00-22:00 | Dinner

Thursday, 25 June 2026

9:00-11:00 | Session four: art and resistance in times of crisis: Sudanese perspectives
‣ Chair: Thomas Spiegler (FAU)
‣ Discussant: Roman Deckert

Becoming and learning to be displaced: Social networks, Class and Gender relations of Displaced Khartoum Artists to Cairo
‣ Katarzyna Grabska (Geneva University, Switzerland)

Staging Migration: Sudanese Theatre as a Cultural Archive of Belonging
‣ Khadiga Mustafa (MICT, Berlin)

Affective Witnessing: Artistic Practices, Testimony, and Knowledge Production in Times of War
‣ Valerie Hänsch (University of Munich)

From Sudan to Paris, talking about December Revolution between Peace and War
‣ Barbara Casciarri (Paris&Lavue) & Alice Franck (Paris 1/Prodig)

11:o0-11:30 | Tea and Coffee Break

11:30-13:30 | Session five: forced displacement in Sudan: surviving multiple wars
‣ Chair: Annette Witherspoon (FAU)
‣ Discussant: Munzoul A. M. Assal (CMI Bergen, Norway)

Caught Between Wars: Media and Humanitarian Representations of Tigrayan Refugees in Sudan
‣ Woldegiorgis G. Teklay (LMU Munich, Germany)

Of the Epistemology of Jihadism in Sudan
‣ Bakheit Mohammed Nur (University of Bayreuth, Germany)

Lessons of the past within: The Eritrean refugee milieu in Khartoum in the 2010s
‣ Magnus Treiber(LMU, Munich, Germany)

Surviving Beyond the State: Urban Integration, Community-Building and Economic Adaptation among Displaced Rural Families in El Fasher Town, Darfur
‣ Osman Mohamed Osman Ali (University of Khartoum) &Ali Mohamed Mahmoud Mohamed (University of El Fasher)

Between Conflict and Exile: Sudanese Children Navigating War, Migration, and Survival
‣ Ibtisam Satti Ibrahim Idris (University of Khartoum)

13:30-14:30 | Lunch

14:30-16:30 | Session six: borders and forced migration
‣ Chair: Ulrike Schultz (FAU)
‣ Discussant: Leif Manger (University of Bergen)

The Impact of War on Higher Education Systems and Institutional Resilience in Sudan
‣ Balghis Badri (Ahfad University, Sudan)

The Heterarchic Relationality and Ontopolitics of Resilience in Darfur, Sudan
‣ Nene-Lomotey Kuditchar (University of Ghana)

In Between Borders: Sudanese Conflict Crises and the Dismantling of Citizenship
‣ Shereen Lalnou (Bahri University, Sudan)

Digital Solidarity and Translocal Connections: Women-Led Networking for Everyday Peace in Sudan
‣ Rayan Mustafa (University of Fulda)

16:30-17:00 | Tea and Coffee Break

17:00-18:00 | Book Launch: ‘The Revolution Continues’ December’s Long March for a Fairer Sudan, (ed): Barbara Casciarri, Alice Franck, Mohamed A. G. Bakhit

19:00 | Dinner and Live Music

Friday, 26 June 2026

10:00-11:30 | Session seven: forced migration experiences in time of war in Sudan
‣ Chair: Kwaku Arhin-Sam

Sudanese Refugees in Uganda: Beyond Categories of Forced Displacements
‣ Mohamed Bakhit (University of Khartoum, Sudan/FAU) & Ulrike Schultz (FAU)

11:30-12:00 | Tea and Coffee Break

12:00-13:00 | Closing Remarks and Discussion of Publication Options

13:00 | Lunch and Departures

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24 June 2026
25 June 2026
26 June 2026

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